


Kintsugi

by eleanorbloom



Category: Open Heart (Visual Novels)
Genre: Cute, Gift, Hope, Kintsugi, Medical Examination, Medical Procedures, Resilience, Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:54:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26637646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleanorbloom/pseuds/eleanorbloom
Summary: I wrote this for Sienna Trinh Appreciation Week on Tumblr.After dealing with several hard cases, Sienna Trihn has to treat a sweet little girl. Her presence in her life would bring her more than one blessing.
Kudos: 3





	Kintsugi

**Prompt:** _Treasured_ _Possession_[@choicesseptemberchallenge20](https://tmblr.co/mowLyA4aPh2v12TjivQqO8Q)

 **Inspired by:** [@siennatrinhappreciationblog](https://tmblr.co/mqnwSNmeH9zvDnpE2P7nZ7g)

The last days had been the most difficult of her entire time at Edenbrook. She had diagnosed three patients that were terminal, and one of them was a little boy of three years old. She wasn’t sure she could do it anymore.

Sienna didn’t feel strong enough to overcome all the sadness she was feeling and be prepared for more, because she knew those wouldn’t be the last terminal patients she would have.

She realized she was doing the opposite of what she had dreamed about being a doctor: She wanted to save lives, better them up, not acknowledge the end of them. Not having any answer or solution to prolong it was a contradiction, it was making her career utterly purposeless.

“Dr. Trinh”—Said one of the nurses walking towards her in a hallway—“Dr. Delarosa wanted me to give you this. New admission in room 578. Girl, five years, headache, vomiting, abdominal pain.”

The woman handed her the chart and Sienna took it with both hands.

“Thank you, Sarah, I’ll go right away”—She responded and motioned to the fifth floor.

Before entering, she read the chart to have all the symptoms in mind and to get the names of the patient and her parents.

Once inside the room, she found a pair of tiny eyes popping up to her direction. The girl was laying on her left side with her hands over her stomach, moving incessantly. Her face was pale and had dark big bad under her beautiful charcoal eyes. Sitting at both sides, were her parents, looking at her with sadness and desperation for not be able to ease the pain of their little girl, and much less know what was happening to her.

Both parents stood up from the bed as she reached the end of the bed and stopped just in front of the girl.

“Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. Kubayashi. Good morning, Yua. I’m Dr. Trinh and I’ll be your doctor today.”

“Good morning, doctor”

“Hi”—The girl barely responded in a tiny voice.

“I’m reading here that you have been feeling very sick these few days, is that correct?”

“Yes, my tummy hurts so much.”

“I’m so sorry darling, let me check your vitals on you, alright?”

“Okay”

Sienna took the stethoscope and helped Yua to sit over the edge of the bed. She felt her heart and lungs; then she observed her ears, nose, eyes, mouth, and throat, and finally made an inspection at her stomach, looking for some fluids or anomalies in her midsection.

“Can you tell me more detailly when the symptoms started?”—Sienna asked her parents while she was writing her observations on the chart.

“Two days ago”—Replied the mother—“It started with some headache and tiredness. I thought it would be the cold, so I just put her at rest. Yesterday her mood was very low and lost appetite. Last night she started experiencing some stomach pain, and today, early in the morning she woke up in with nausea and after a few minutes she threw up, so we brought her here”

“When was the last time she ate something?”

“Yesterday afternoon. She took a glass of milk and ate some white rice, but since then she hasn’t been able to eat anything else.”

“How many times she had thrown up since this morning?”

“Three.”

“Ok, she must be dehydrated. I’m going to connect her to intravenous fluids—Sienna informed and then she looked directly at Yua—Darling, I’m going to insert you a needle in your forearm, okay? Are you brave?”

“Yes, my mum and dad say that I’m super brave and my classmates at school think that too.”

“That’s amazing, darling. This will hurt just a bit okay? But then you’ll start getting better”

“Alright”

She went to the nearest supply closet for an IV to do the procedure by herself. 

She barely winced when she inserted the needle in her tiny arm.

“Is that all?”

“Yes, sweetie, did it hurt?”

“No, I didn’t feel a thing”

“You’re incredibly brave, then. From here you’ll receive the nutrients you lost when you felt sick this morning. And I’ll draw some blood to run some tests.”

“Tests for what?”

“To check if there are any intruders than invaded your system and caused you feeling this bad. Maybe something that you ate made you feel sick. Have you eaten something out of the usual? Maybe at school or at a friend’s house?”

“Um… No, I haven’t”

“Alright. And have you been in a strange place, some dirty camp?”

“Not that I remember”

“Our Yua goes to school and just hangs out with their friends in the neighborhood. She hasn’t been in any place that we haven’t been, and of what we can recall, every place was clean”—The father said.

“Ok Mr. Kubayashi, noted.”

She talked a few more minutes with the parents and then left to the nurses’ station to arrange the blood tests.

The intern continued to check on her other patients until the tests were ready and the results didn’t inform anything extraordinary. She went back to the room to update the parents in her findings. She only found the mother.

“Mrs. Kubayashi, hello again.”

“Doctor. Do you know what’s wrong with my daughter? My husband is on the phone right now.”

“Unfortunately, no. The result didn’t show any bacteria or virus in her system, any traces of metal either, but maybe that’s because is out of her system now. But don’t worry, we’ll keep looking for the origin of her symptoms.”—Sienna gave the mother a reassuring smile.

“I wonder if there’s any more information you could provide… Anything, whatever catches your attention.”

“Honestly no, Yua has been doing as usual these days. She goes to school, she returns home. I have morning shifts so I can be at home with her after school, so I’m always at home with her. She has been going out to play with her friends as always, I know every one of them and there hasn’t been anything out of the ordinary lately.”

“Alright. I’ll run a new blood test to look for something more specific and some urine analysis. I’ll leave you this container so when Yua goes to the bathroom, you can collect some urine to run a test. Once you have it, you call a nurse and she’ll know what to do.”

The mother nodded.

Little Yua was sleeping at that moment, but her aspect had improved significantly. She wasn’t that pale and her pain had decreased due to some analgesics she had ordered. 

“Mrs. Kubayashi, I’ll do my best to find what’s the problem with your daughter”

“Thank you doctor”

The new blood test didn’t show anything. The urine analysis was still pending.

It was four in the afternoon when she noticed her parents hadn’t had lunch, so she insisted that they could go to the cafeteria to grab some food and assured them that she would stay with Yua while they were gone.

The girl was awake when she took a seat by her side. She had regained enough energy to sit for a while and painting some draws.

“How are you feeling, Yua?”

“My tummy doesn’t hurt that much but it still feels weird”

“I know, I promise I will find what’s the problem with you soon.”

“Thank you, doctor”

“You can call me Sienna if you want.”

“Sienna? That’s a pretty cool name.”

“You think so? I think _yours_ is pretty cool. Do you know what it means? Because all Japanese names have really beautiful meanings.”

“Yes, my name means _love_ and _affection._ ”

“Aw. It totally suits you, darling. You’re the most beautiful bundle of love and affection I’ve ever met.”

Yua smiled fondly at her.

“You are so kind. I didn’t know doctors were so nice.”

“Ah, actually they are not, maybe is your lucky day and that’s why I got to be your doctor today.”

 _“I think I’m spending too much time with Bryce”_ , she thought. Those words were the cockiest she had said in her entire life, but somehow it felt really good.

“Yeah. I’m lucky.”

“Can you tell me about your friends? How many you have?”

“At school, we are friends with everyone, so I have a lot of friends, actually.”

“Oh, I bet you do. And in your neighborhood?”

“Five.”—She raised her open hand in the air and started pointing every one of her fingers with the thumb and index from the other hand.—“Terry, Melanie, Charlotte, Dylan, and Susana”

“And do you have a best friend, or you love them all equally?”

“Terry’s my best friend. He lives next door. We go to school together and we play almost every day.”

“And what do you like to play?”

“Well, sometimes we are warriors, some other times fairies, and sometimes we just play hide and seek.”

“Uh, yeah? And what are your best spots to hide?”

“Under my mum’s car. Or between the bushes, but the other day I found a super cool place at his garage.”

“At his garage? And what place would be that?”

“It was an old cabinet with hammers, a lot of heavy stuff, and some cans”

“Some cans? What types of cans? Like painting?”

“No, like oils and garlic sauce”

“Garlic sauce you say?”

“Yes.”

Sienna observed how naturally and careless the little girl was answering, lost in her drawings.

“And by any chance, you tried the garlic sauce?”

“Um I think so.”

“Why do you think so?”

“Because while I was hiding, I remembered my mum does a really yummy bread with garlic and I had a cookie at my pocket, so I thought I could try it with the cookie.”

“And you ate the cookie with the sauce?”

“Yes”

“And how it tasted?”

“It had no taste”—She shrugged her shoulders—“It was just chocolate, no garlic at all. It only smelled like garlic”

Sienna opened her eyes, alarmed.

“Thank you for telling me this sweetie. I think I know what happened to you.”

When her parents returned from lunch, she got up and went to the nurses’ station to see if the urine test were ready. It had been delivered just a few minutes ago. She read the results and went back to Yua’s room.

“Mr. and Mrs. Kubayashi, I have news.”

“Did you find what’s wrong with Yua?”

“Yes. She was poisoned with arsenic.”

“With Arsenic?! How is that possible…?”

“It seems that she ingested some liquid form of arsenic a few days ago.”

“How?”

“While you were gone we just chatted a bit with Yua and she told me she and her friend Terry were playing hide and seek and she hid in a cabinet in the garage of his house, which had oils and ‘garlic sauce’. Arsenic is known for is garlic smell, and the urine samples showed indicators that arsenic was in her system.”

“But why it didn’t show in the blood tests? You said there weren’t any metals.”

“Yes, there weren’t any because it has been two days since then, so it might be out of her bloodstream by now, but it’s still in her kidneys. It showed a very low concentration but may be elevated compared to her normal levels.”

“Mmh yes, that makes sense.”—The father conceded.

“We need to confirm what she actually ingested, so it would be ideal if you could talk with Terry’s parents to check the cans in the garage and see the components of the product.”

“I’ll call Kathy immediately”—The mother informed, pulling her phone out from her purse.

“And she will be okay?”—Asked the father while the mother was on the phone.

“Yes, considering the symptoms, she ingested a low amount, but it was enough to cause all that she’s been experiencing these days. Either way, I’ll order an ultrasound to confirm if there is any damage in her kidneys, but like their symptoms were not extreme, it shouldn’t be.”

“Thank you so much doctor, you don’t know how grateful we are you saved our daughter.”

“It’s my job, and has been a pleasure, your daughter is incredibly loving."

Once it was confirmed that she did have ingested a pesticide that contained a high amount of arsenic, and the ultrasound showed that there wasn’t any major damage in her body, Sienna set the treatment for the little girl.

After her diagnosis, she visited her daily, normally when she was feeling low and needed a boost of energy and joy. 

On the morning of her discharge, she entered the room with a big smile on her face to say goodbye to Yua.

“Dr. Trihn, can we speak with you a moment?”—The mother said a few moments after she gave a big hug to Yua.

“Of course”

She went back outside the room and waited for the parents to come out.

“What do you need, Mrs. Kubayashi?”

“Doctor Trinh, we wanted to thank you for all you have done for our daughter.”—Said the father, staring at her, and then making a bow to her, as a sign of thankfulness.

“You have been so kind, considerate and nice with her, more than any other doctor would have.”—Continued the mother—"You have visited and accompanied her every day since she is here, and we are sure that her stay here was happy and calm just because of you.”

“Oh, I appreciate your words, I’m so glad I could make a difference in the care of your daughter. It makes me very happy, Mrs. and Mr. Kubayashi.”

“Also, we would like to give you this.”

The woman handed her a small white box with a golden ribbon on top. Sienna received the gift with amazed eyes, she observed the box carefully, and then she looks at them like expecting their approval to open it up.

“Go ahead, please.”

“I’ll leave you to it. Thank you so much again, Doctor Trinh”—Said the father, nodding to Sienna and then joining her daughter back in the room.

Sienna opened the box and found a white cup inside. When she took it in her small hands, she observed it was made of ceramic and had a drawing of a goat and a birth looking at each other in blue ink. But what was special about the cup was that it had delicate golden lines in the middle the ceramic and other various forms of lines from the center to the edge of the ceramic.

She smiled with shiny eyes.

“I think I know what this is, but I don’t know the name. My grandmother, who is Vietnamese, used to do this when she was a kid.”

“It’s _Kintsugi_ , the art of putting broken pottery pieces back together with gold.”

“Kintsugi.”—She repeated, trying to absorb the word.—"This is really beautiful, thank you so much.”

“My grandmother back in Japan taught me this art. Is a very important tradition there, and naturally in our family. The first time this cup was broken, was when Yua had two years old. I repaired it with Kintsugi, and a few months ago it broke again but this time Yua and I put the broken pieces together. And as Yua did this, I would like you to keep it. It will serve you as a reminder.”

“A reminder? A reminder for what, Mrs. Kubayashi?”

“Kintsugi it’s not only about the art of putting _material_ pieces back together, it’s also about the idea that we all should embrace our flaws and imperfections, and with that, we create an even stronger, more beautiful piece of art: ourselves.”

Sienna felt marveled at the deep and delicate significance of the gift. It was more than she could’ve hoped for.

“As a knower of this art, I also know when people might need some gold in their scars, in their broken souls. I saw the pain in your eyes the other day and how hard you try to hide it. At that moment I knew you were a piece of Kintsugi.”

The brown-haired doctor felt a shiver down her spine and her eyes went wet with tears.

“I’m sorry, doctor, it wasn’t my intention to make you feel bad…”

“Don’t worry.”—She shook her head—"Please, continue.”

“You… You struggle daily with loss, and maybe with a lot of difficult people that’s doesn’t appreciate your effort and kindness. You struggle with your own fears, as we all do, but you always have a smile on your face, even if you don’t feel well. Some may say it’s just a fake smile, a lie, but actually, that’s _resilience:_ the strength to overcome any adversities, to keep going even when you’re hurting. The problem is that you think that the pain that’s consuming you is making you weaker.”

She nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“You should know, doctor, that if after all the adversities, you’re here, and you can put a smile on your face to cheer my daughter up, or any other patients that you have to care for, it’s because you have the capacity to overcome the pain. You have resilience. And that vulnerability is what makes you stronger. It sounds contradictory, right?”

“Actually, yes.”

“Accepting the pain and deal with it makes you grow up, makes you stronger because you accept that in life bad things happen but you are not defined by the bad in your life. You take an experience from that and learn a lesson. That lesson makes you stronger because you’ll have tools in case something bad happens again. Good days give you happiness, and bad days, doctor Trinh, give you experience.”

Sienna smiled faintly as she listened to the woman just saying the words her soul needed to hear maybe since forever.

“Thank you, Mrs. Kubayashi. You… you have no idea how much I needed to hear this. Has been really difficult weeks—She sobbed—“I’m sorry…”

“It’s okay”—The woman said softly, patting her should softly.

“Since now, you have to think about yourself just like this cup. The golden lines are what make this cup unique and beautiful. Your bad days, your pain, and how, after all that, you can put a smile on your face and make everybody happy around you, it’s what makes _you_ beautiful.”

After a few seconds of staring at Mrs. Kubayashi with the most thankful smile, she felt tiny arms encircle her waist. She looked down and found Yua looking at her worried

“Are you okay, Sienna? Why my mum made you cry?”

“She just told me a really beautiful story.”—She replied, caressing her forehead—“Thank you so much Mrs. Kubayashi. This means so much to me. It’ll become my most **treasured** **possession** from now on. It will be with me through all difficulties to remind me that I’m stronger than I think.”

“That’s correct, dear”

Sienna hugged her.

“Thank you so much. You have a wonderful daughter. I’m glad she has loving parents like you are.”

“She made us better people.”

Sienna squatted down to see Yua in the eyes.

“Have a happy life little Yua. Keep lighting everybody’s life with your sweetness and joy just like you do now”

Yua put her arms around her neck.

“Thank you for being my friend here. I’ll try to visit you sometime.”

“That would be really nice, Yua.”

She stood up again and gave her parents one last thankful smile.

“Thank you for thinking about me the way you did. This means a lot.”

“You’re very welcome, doctor Trinh. It’s the less you deserve.”

Sienna dried her tears with the back of her hand while she saw Yua and her parents walking down the hallway.

Yua looked back and smiled at her once last time.

Sienna smiled back too, but this time, it was the most genuine smile she had given in months.


End file.
